Gilded Cages, Broken Wings
by victoria p
Summary: Logan returns to the mansion after five years, but Rogue isn't there.


Title: Gilded Cages, Broken Wings  
Author: Victoria P. [victoria_p@att.net]  
Summary: Five years after the movie, Logan returns to New York, but Rogue is no longer at the mansion.  
Rating: R - language, sexual situations  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. I make no money. Please don't sue me. I know they all belong to Marvel and Fox. I'm just playing. "Sin" belongs to Trent Reznor/Nine Inch Nails.  
Archiving: If you've already got my stuff, sure. If you haven't, just let me know where you're putting it.  
Notes: I feel like I've been working on this story forever, but I guess it's only been three long months... I hope it's worth it. Thanks to Meg, Dot, Jen and Pete for beta'ing and encouraging me and telling me this didn't suck.  
Date: 15 February 2001  
  
indicates thoughts  
{ } indicates song lyrics  
  
Gilded Cages, Broken Wings  
  
He walked into the place looking for a drink and maybe a woman to take back to the room he was renting. He sat at the bar and let the girls chat him up. It was a strip club, relatively clean for the business, with two notable exceptions: a number of the girls were obviously mutants, and the headline attraction danced in a cage painted gold. The patrons could look, but never touch her. It was an odd set up, but it appealed to a certain type of man and added cachet to what was a seedy profession, even in the most upscale club.  
  
Unfortunately, two of those men had just crossed the line and grabbed the girl as she was leaving the cage. She was blonde and busty; she kicked futilely at her would-be captors  
with her white platform pumps.  
  
The bouncer tried to stop them, but a third man, in league with the other two, came out of nowhere and cold-cocked him.  
  
Everyone in the place turned to look as the stripper, unnatural breasts bouncing, pounded on the back of the man carrying her, yelling, "Put me down, dammit! Let me go!"  
  
They passed Logan, who really had no plans to get involved, but he never did like seeing a lady in distress. Especially a lady with an ass as nice as this one. Without breaking a sweat, he grabbed her and slung her down onto the stool he'd just vacated. The asshole who'd snatched her was so shocked he didn't even put up a fight. Logan knocked out the three guys who'd caused all the trouble. Then he went back to his bottle of scotch. He was pretty sure he wouldn't be sleeping alone that night.  
  
He didn't expect to be offered a job. Part of him, the philosophical part most people never got to see, found it ironic that after all his years of fighting in cages, he would now be fighting to keep men out of the cages, away from the girls.  
  
He still couldn't say why he'd come back to New York -- it hadn't been weariness alone, but also a desire to finally settle down for a while, maybe hang out with the kid. He hadn't spoken to her in the past three years. Somehow he'd lost track of time, and with every month that passed he grew more embarrassed, though he'd never admit it, that he hadn't called. So he let it slip. He still couldn't believe it had been five years since he'd seen her.  
  
But he wanted to hear the honey lilt of her voice again as she teased him. When he'd arrived at the mansion, he almost couldn't control his eagerness to see her, and his disappointment had been overwhelming when she wasn't the first to greet him.  
  
And then he sniffed the air and realized that he couldn't detect her scent. Something was wrong.   
  
"Where is she, Chuck?" he growled, before Jean could finish telling him all the news that he didn't give a damn about.  
  
"She's gone, Logan. She chose to leave about a year ago and she has not been in touch since," Xavier told him sadly. "She was having a hard time, and we both thought she might do better on her own."  
  
Once he'd calmed down after wrecking the study, Jean said, "She was trouble, Logan. She never did fit in. And she knew it."  
  
He growled at the redhead he'd once found so attractive. "What the fuck does that mean, Jeannie? She didn't fit in? None of you geeks fit in. I thought that was the whole point of this place."  
  
Jean sighed. "She's not the same girl you knew, Logan. Don't pass judgment on us for something we had no control over."  
  
"Whatever," he said, stalking out.  
  
"Aren't you going to stay?" she called after him.  
  
"No," was his blunt response. He climbed onto his bike -- the one he'd taken from Cyclops long gone -- and roared away into the night.  
  
And now, a month later, he was being offered a job at the Gilded Cage, New York's premier strip club for men of unusual tastes. He decided to take it, for as long as it lasted. He figured he'd only be in town another month or so, checking on leads to see if he could find Marie. So far, nothing had proved fruitful, but that didn't mean he was going to give up. If it came down to it, he would convince Chuck to use Cerebro, at clawpoint if necessary.  
  
The next night, Babette -- her name as false as her breasts, he thought, but they'd had fun all the same -- took him backstage and showed him around.  
  
He stopped, stunned, sniffing the air in the dressing room. He would swear that Marie had been here. Not today or yesterday, but fairly recently. Maybe that's what had guided him into this place, the lingering remains of her scent. He said nothing, however. It had to be a mirage, an olfactory hallucination. There were billions of people in the world -- some of them were bound to smell alike. Because what the hell would Marie be doing in a strip club? he asked himself. She was untouchable, and that had nothing to do with any cage or bouncer.  
  
As the week went on, the scent grew faint, fading in and out, until he thought he'd imagined it altogether. Every night he stood, arms folded over his chest, in front of the main stage. A hydraulic lift raised the large cage in which the featured performer danced.  
  
Babette was the main attraction that week. She was a favorite of the customers. After a few nights, Logan moved on to someone else. There were enough girls in the place that he could have had a different one -- and sometimes two -- every night.  
  
Another week passed, and his contacts in the mutant underground still had no trace of Marie. He was growing desperate and thinking of traveling back to Canada, to see if he could somehow track her. She'd always run north before, he knew. But he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that she was still somewhere in the city, hiding.  
  
He showed up early, before his shift officially began, because he liked to talk with the girls who'd be in the cage while he was working. It wasn't much of a talk, consisting mainly of a grunted, "Let me know if anyone bothers you."  
  
He also occasionally worked the door or the private rooms, making sure the girls giving private dances didn't get into anything they didn't want. Sometimes they were stupid, and let the men do things that were illegal. Then Logan had to go in and remind the guy that he was not supposed to touch *at all.* He enjoyed that, but he didn't mind guarding the stage, either. There were always guys who didn't understand "look but don't touch" and he got to show them forcefully, if necessary, what it meant.  
  
The girl going on tonight was one he hadn't met before. Candy, they called her. She'd been on vacation for the two weeks he'd worked there, and he was annoyed when she didn't show up on time. They'd given him a special list of instructions in regard to her, and he wanted to tell her straight off that he wasn't going to put up with any diva-like behavior from some two-bit stripper, no matter how much cash she brought in.  
  
***  
  
Two nights earlier...  
  
Rogue tossed her pen down, sat back in the chair, and rubbed the back of her neck with one gloved hand.  
  
She was now thoroughly conversant with the various symptoms and treatments for bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, and -- oh, yeah -- Multiple Personality Disorder, which many psychiatric experts no longer believe exists. That's because they haven't met you, a voice in her head snickered.   
  
"Shut up, Carol." She said it out loud. No one was in the apartment with her at the moment; both her roommates were working that night.  
  
It had taken her a while to adjust to living with people again. After the accident, no one had wanted to room with her -- she was too volatile a mix of personalities -- so Xavier had given her a private room. Carol had been pissed over what had happened, even though it was mostly her fault -- Was not, the voice that was Carol sulked. Rogue had long since given up arguing with her. Occasionally, she'd admit she hadn't thought through the consequences of her actions. But that was a rare and recent development.  
  
The woman had had super-strength. She'd been seriously injured in a fight with the Brotherhood and had grabbed Rogue in an attempt to transfer some of that strength, to turn the tide of battle in the X-Men's favor. Then she'd passed out, leaving Rogue trapped in her grip. Rogue was unable to break free until after she'd absorbed most of Carol's strength.  
  
Along with her memories, personality and other abilities.   
  
Carol was reduced to a lifeless husk, barely capable of breathing on her own, sustained by machines and Jean Grey's care down in the lab at the school.  
  
It had been Rogue's first combat mission with the team.  
  
Rogue did what she always did when one of her personalities became a problem. She shut down and meditated. She focused on being Marie and only Marie. Xavier had taught her the technique, long before she was a pariah. Logan's hazy memories had surprisingly included detailed knowledge of various Eastern forms of meditation, and a good grasp of the Japanese language.  
  
That was part of the problem. Logan had never really faded from her mind, and he and Carol did *not* get along. So having her in there had brought him roaring back to life, angry at having what he considered his territory invaded by an outsider. At least, that was how Rogue would have described it, had anyone bothered to ask.  
  
No one had, except the Professor. He and Scott were the only ones who hadn't followed Jean's lead and made her life a living hell in the weeks and months following the tragedy. Jean's latent empathic abilities had influenced everyone's feelings, and only Scott and Xavier had shields strong enough to resist her.  
  
Carol and Jean had been close friends, and no one could sway Jean's belief that Rogue had somehow wanted this to happen. As if she'd wanted another extremely powerful, pissed off mutant in her head. She'd had her fill with Logan and Erik, thanks. But she understood Jean's anger and feelings of loss. She just couldn't understand why the woman couldn't leave her be, even after six months had passed.  
  
After those six months, months she spent being shunned by the people she had come to love as friends and teammates, she'd gone to Xavier and told him she was leaving.  
  
He'd sadly agreed that maybe it was for the best. He'd given her some money and told her if she ever needed anything, to come home.  
  
"Home?" she'd laughed bitterly. "Yeah, right." She could see the hurt in his eyes and hated him for not standing up to his pet. "Don't try to find me, Chuck," she said, letting Logan come to the fore. "Don't watch over me. You could have helped me, helped us all, but you let her rule your heart. You all do." She regretted those words now. Carol had been his student as well and he didn't like to see any of them in pain. It was just that Jean's anger seeped into them all.   
  
Scott drove her to the train station, once again apologizing awkwardly for Jean's behavior and giving her some more money, which she was not too proud to take. She'd been on her own on the run before. His voice was achingly sincere when he echoed the Professor's words and told her to call him if she ever needed anything. He gave her his private cell phone number.  
  
She remembered the last time she'd run from the school, but now there was no Logan to comfort her and convince her to go back. After two years, he'd stopped calling, and after four, she'd found she no longer missed him as much. The pain had dwindled to a dull ache that only flared up when she thought about him. She tried not to. In addition to being painful, it pissed Carol off. Make yourself sick over him, sure, she would sneer, throw yourself at a man who ran out of your life as fast as that bike could carry him. And that would rile Logan, and Rogue would have to lie in the dark with the lights off, meditating desperately until she got some peace.  
  
She had worked in a deli and she had worked as a waitress and found she couldn't afford to live in Manhattan. In desperation, she spent the last of her money on a pair of black leather boots with stiletto heels that laced up over her knees and answered an ad in the Village Voice looking for "exotic dancers with unusual abilities." She certainly fit the second part, and she learned how to be the first from Lena and Sally, the women who'd taken her in and given her hope that maybe she could make it through this.  
  
She made enough money in her first month to start contributing toward the rent on their two-bedroom Upper West Side apartment. With her scholarship intact, she'd been able to resume classes at Hunter in September, losing only one semester's worth of time in her pursuit of a degree.  
  
She had no idea what she'd do once she got the BA in English Lit, with a minor in Psychology. The idea of teaching appealed to her, but what school would hire an obvious mutant? She wasn't welcome at the only one she knew of.  
  
She was still deep in her trance when her roommates got home, accompanied by a couple of other girls from the club.  
  
Rogue was startled back to consciousness when Lena tossed a bag down on the table in front of her.  
  
"Special for you, Rogue," she said cheerfully as the girl opened her eyes and took in the sight of Lena, Sally, Trish, Vanessa and LaTonya in all their ghetto fabulous glory.  
  
She reached for the bag and pulled out a long fall of red hair. "Red, Lena? I specifically asked for blonde." Carol was blonde.  
  
Lena shrugged. "We thought you'd look fab as a redhead." Jean was a redhead. Logan wanted Jean. Stop that, she told herself. Yeah, Carol said. Jean? You wanna look like Jean after the way she's treated you? You really are a wimp. Lena was still talking. "Blonde would just wash out all your color."  
  
"What color?" LaTonya cracked. "She's practically translucent under all those clothes."  
  
"I suppose it's cool," she said, smiling weakly at the joke. Blonde is the way to go. She sighed. Carol wasn't going to let her be. She'd really wanted that blonde wig.  
  
Sally sat down next to her at the table. "You all right?"  
  
"Yeah. Abnormal Psych final tomorrow and then that's it. Winter vacation."  
  
"And back to work!" LaTonya said cheerfully. Other than her roommates, LaTonya was Rogue's closest friend among the dancers at the club. The same age, they had many interests in common, the differences in their backgrounds notwithstanding. LaTonya was from Harlem, Rogue from small-town Mississippi, yet they'd clicked almost immediately, despite Rogue's obvious mutation. Tonya had none of the jealousy that some of the others felt toward her.  
  
She'd come in knowing nothing, and with her fuck-me boots and leather gloves, she'd soon become a major hit at the Cage. Her untouchable-ness only heightened her allure. Some of the other, more experienced dancers, Barbara (Babette to the men) and Shari, for instance -- formerly the most popular dancers -- hadn't like sharing the spotlight with a newcomer, but LaTonya was different. Supremely confident in her beauty and abilities, she never felt threatened.  
  
"I like the red," she said now. "Gives Candy," Rogue's stage name, "a new flavor."  
  
"If you say so," Rogue grumbled good-naturedly, getting up and going to the mirror in the living room. She pulled the wig on and looked at herself. It was long, almost to her waist, and a beautiful, natural-looking, Scully-red. She began moving sinuously, seeing how it would flow with her act. She tried to put all thoughts of Logan and Jean out of her head.   
  
Dancing was one of the few times she was able to free herself from thinking altogether. It was purely instinctive, like having sex. Even though she never had, both Carol and Logan were *very* experienced, and that influenced her. She knew exactly what men liked, and how to provide that on stage.  
  
Objectively, she hated it. She hated being so naked in front of so many people, after being covered up for so long. She hated being turned into an object, a pair of tits and a slit with a person attached; she hated the way the men leered and cheered and made her feel like a piece of meat. But she also reveled in the power they gave her, and she did have power.   
  
Mostly, though, she needed the money. It always came down to survival, and damn if she wasn't going to make it, by hook or by crook. And the sheer physicality of it allowed her to channel all the rage she felt into dancing, so that she was fierce in her sexuality and able to work out some of her aggression on stage, without thinking about it.  
  
She found herself looking forward to returning to work, something she'd never expected when she'd started there back in March.  
  
She had tuned out the conversation when she started dancing, so she wasn't paying much attention until she heard his name. His name on Vanessa's lips.  
  
She was dishing the gossip she lived for. "Oh, yeah, Barb was furious when Logan decided to take Chantal home last night. She thought they had a thing going on, even though he's been with half the girls already. Bitch stole Chan's red mules this afternoon, and you know how anal Chan is about anyone touching her shit."  
  
"Who?" Rogue managed to ask, voice relatively steady, when Nessa stopped for breath. She pulled the wig off absently.  
  
"The new guy. Logan. Took Carmine's place. Big, hairy motherfucker," Vanessa said. "Hot as balls, and an animal in the sack, according to Barb. And Chan. And Deedee." She rattled off the list and Rogue felt her stomach turn. He was here. He was in New York. He worked at the same place she did. She put a hand out and grabbed the back of the chair she'd been sitting in earlier, trying to focus on what the other woman was saying. Vanessa never shut up, but in a way that was good, because she never noticed Rogue's strange reaction. God, you're pathetic, getting all wobbly over a man who abandoned you. She closed her eyes. Shut up, Carol. She heard the woman's laugh echo in her head. "We've got a pool going on who's gonna be next."  
  
"Shari," Lena said knowingly. "You know Shari can't stand Barb having one up on her, and she's been sweatin' him since he showed up."  
  
"He left alone tonight," Trish said quietly, speaking for the first time. She was new to the club, and to the clique she'd fallen into. Petite, except for her implants, and blonde, she was shyer than the others. She wasn't going to last long, Rogue thought.  
  
"You sure, Trisha?" That was Vanessa, looking for more dirt.  
  
"Yeah. He offered to get me a cab while I was out smoking, but I said I was waiting for you guys to finish up." She looked down at her hands, folded neatly in her lap. "He told me a nice girl like me shouldn't be working at the Cage. Said I'd get hurt and should find a better job. I told him I had a baby to support and that this was the only way to make money without a GED. He seemed angry. Then he got on his bike and left."  
  
Rogue smiled. That was the man she knew and loved. Dammit, girl. You don't love him. You don't even *know* him anymore, she thought. But you'd let him in your pants if he asked, Carol snickered.  
  
"Well, well, it looks like you've piqued Roguey's interest," Lena said, sitting down on Sally's lap. "Somehow I knew it would be the good guy crap and not the animal-in-the-sack thing that got your attention, kid."  
  
Her smile widened at the endearment. That had been what he called her. "I know I can't compete in that area, Lena." She held her arms out. "Untouchable, remember? Not just for the show, but for real. Forever."  
  
"He strikes me as the creative sort," Sally mused.   
  
Lena looked at her lover. "And you would be thinking this because?"  
  
Sally shrugged. "No reason. Just bored while one of the johns chattered about how his wife won't go down on him."  
  
The conversation turned then to the variously stupid, inane or amazingly personal things their patrons told them during private dances. Rogue didn't participate, since she never gave private dances.  
  
She went to her room, ostensibly to get a good night's rest before her final in the morning, but she sat there, wondering what to do.  
  
She needed the job. Desmond, the manager, had agreed to the two-week hiatus because she'd threatened to quit and go work at Scores after finals, but she didn't think she could stay out until Logan got bored and left. She sighed. Maybe she could change to the day shift, even though there was less money in it, because she was sure he'd be working during the prime night hours. She fell asleep still pondering the possibilities.  
  
***  
  
3.  
Rogue waited as long as she could to go into work that evening. She was on the first time at nine, and usually she'd be in the dressing room by six, buffing and polishing and making sure her body was as perfect as she could make it. Unlike the other girls, she couldn't have someone else groom her, unless they wore gloves. And even then she was uncomfortable with others touching her, since so much lethal skin was exposed.  
  
She came in the back entrance a little after seven and hung around in the basement for about an hour, playing poker with the busboys. She knew there was no way to avoid seeing him, if he was even there (part of her still didn't believe it), but she wanted to put it off as long as possible, because who knew what his reaction would be?  
  
Finally she made her way up to the dressing room.   
  
"God, Candy," LaTonya emphasized the stage name. House rules stated that no one was supposed to know the dancers' real names, for safety reasons. "We thought you were never gonna show."  
  
"Have I ever missed a performance, Tawny?" she shot back, hiding her nervousness under bravado.  
  
LaTonya shrugged and went back to applying her mascara.  
  
Rogue pulled off her street clothes and sorted through the various costumes hanging on the rack. Trish had appropriated her naughty schoolgirl routine, and she decided she didn't want that to be Logan's first glimpse of her anyway. She was grown up now, and she'd be damned if he didn't know it before the night was through. You go, girl, Carol snickered.  
  
She lingered over the tray of lotions and perfumes at the vanity. One of the things she'd kept of Logan's was an appreciation for the way things smelled. Though the super senses had faded quickly, she found herself more and more drawn to certain scents and how they mixed with her body's chemistry. Tonight, she wanted something different, something spicy and fresh. She pulled out the tube of Origins pearlized ginger lotion and began smoothing it over her ivory skin. It shimmered when she moved, satisfying both sight and smell. She sprayed some Essence of Ginger on the red wig and slipped it on over her pinned up hair.   
  
Next she put on a leather bustier that laced up the front, and a short leather skirt over her black g-string. Rolling her stockings up her legs, she noted that the skirt wasn't even long enough to brush the tops of the thigh-highs, and everyone got a good view of her ass, and beyond, when she bent over.  
  
Boots next, a new pair of the same style that had won her the job in the first place. The black leather clung to her long, shapely calves like a second skin, and climbed up over her knees to stop at the tops of the stockings. These were custom made for her, with little pockets at the tops, where the men could put her tips, since, unlike the other girls, she couldn't let her bare skin get close to theirs.  
  
Then she applied her make up. More lotion to give her face that same pearly glow as the rest of her, and some glitter just under her eyebrows. Scarlet lipstick and a faint hint of terra cotta blush completed her ministrations.  
  
She stood at the mirror, adjusting her breasts in the corset. She wasn't as chesty as most of the other women, but she'd refused to let Desmond pay for implants. She was happy with her 32Cs, and so were her customers. At Xavier's, Jubes and Kitty had been jealous of her attributes; here, she was considered small.  
  
Flicking the red hair over her shoulder, making sure the wig was secure, she smoothed the leather gloves on her arms and took a deep breath. Puffing her cheeks and blowing the air out in a big gust, she muttered, "Okay, kid, time to show 'em what you got."  
  
She was ready. She only hoped Logan was, too.  
  
***  
  
Logan stood at the door, annoyed. Ramesh hadn't shown up for work tonight, which meant they were short-handed. Apparently, this Candy skirt, who hadn't shown by the time the evening shift started at seven, was hot stuff, and Desmond was afraid that the rush to see her return would be overwhelming. Hence, Logan at the door, making sure nobody too rowdy got in.  
  
He caught the scent again, later on, the Marie-scent that had faded in and out the past two weeks, and it distracted him momentarily. It was stronger and mixed with something else... leather, and -- ginger. He was standing off to the side of the bar, outside the room where Shari -- or Sasha, as the club patrons knew her -- was giving a very prominent politician a very up-close and personal view of her concerns.  
  
The music was loud and harder than what most of the headliners chose to use. Even so, he could hear the cage rising and the crowd getting excited at their first glimpse of Candy in two weeks. He watched, wondering what was so special about this particular one.  
  
Rogue strutted around the cage as it rose, shaking her hips and her hair in time to "Sin" by Nine Inch Nails. Vinny, the deejay, had argued with her choice, wanting to play one of her usual numbers. Finally, she'd resorted to threats and he'd relented. She wanted the music to fit the scene, and she couldn't think of anything more suitable.   
  
She stood at the back of the cage for a moment once it settled in, legs spread, back to the crowd, one arm resting on the metal above her head. She wondered if he'd remember that it was the exact position he'd been in the first time she'd ever seen him.   
  
Trent Reznor's barbed wire voice...{You give me the reason / you give me control / I gave you my purity / my purity you stole}  
  
Logan looked up, nostrils flared, at the lithe redhead in the cage. Legs for days, he noted, and a nice ass. Candy was the one exuding the scent that had haunted him and he wondered why he hadn't made the connection before.  
  
And then he was done wondering as she turned and flipped the hair over her shoulder, gloved hands running down her body, fueling the imagination of every man in the joint. Gloved hands. No fucking way in hell, he thought, watching intently.  
  
She shimmied down to the floor and kicked out those leather-encased legs, giving them all a view of her crotch. Kneeling, she slid her hands up her inner thighs, rolling her hips, and snapped the skirt off, tossing it aside. She leaned forward and her smooth, firm ass pumped up and down against the floor, her skin pale and luminous in the spotlight.  
  
Logan felt his jeans get tighter and his temper rise.  
  
{You give me the anger / you give me the nerve / carry out my sentence / well I get what I deserve / I'm just an effigy to be defaced / to be disgraced / your need for me has been replaced / but if I can't have everything / well then just give me a taste}  
  
She was up again, wrapping herself around the pole in the center of the stage, slowly unlacing her bustier as her hips ground into the metal.   
  
And then her breasts were free and she ran her hands over them, kneading and teasing, and it was all he could do to keep his claws sheathed. He began moving unconsciously toward the stage.  
  
Clad in g-string, boots and gloves, she could feel his eyes on her -- even among the hundreds of men in the place, she could feel the laser intentness of his hazel eyes drinking in her body. And it turned her on. She'd never admitted it to anybody, but the only way she'd made it through her first few weeks on the job had been by imagining her hands were his on her body as she closed her eyes.  
  
And now he was watching her. She licked her lips and enjoyed the feel of leather against her skin as she danced, sliding one hand between her legs and the other up over her breasts and into the hair that spilled down her back. She didn't look for him, but he was suddenly there in front of her.  
  
{Did you think I wouldn't recognize / this compromise / am I just too stupid to realize / stale incense / old sweat / and lies, lies, lies}  
  
She crawled along, humping the floor, a look of faux-ecstasy pinned on her face. He looked pissed off. She licked her lips again, this time in nervousness. Suddenly she wanted the dance to be over, and the song was taking too damn long.   
  
{It comes down to this / your fist / your kiss / and your strain / it gets under my skin / within / takes in / the extent of my sin}  
  
She danced over to where he was standing and gave him an eyeful, gracefully lying on the floor and raising her hips as she ran her hands over her breasts. She rose as the song ended and wrapped one leg around a bar of the cage and noticed his hands opening and closing, his knuckles white with strain. Then one iron hand was around her ankle and he hissed, "Wait right there."  
  
They had told him he had to stick by her at all times when she was in the crowd, but he'd thought it was prima donna bullshit, the kind Babette liked to pull. Even with the scent haunting him, he'd never, *never* thought "Candy" was Rogue, was his Marie.  
  
He opened the cage and helped her out so she could collect her tips, grabbing her carefully by her covered elbow.  
  
"Hey, sugar," she said, proud that her voice didn't waver, "long time no see."  
  
He walked along with her as she chatted with her regulars and accepted their money in her boots. One or two rubbed a hand up her leather-clad leg, but he stopped that right quick with a growl. She rolled her eyes and joked about her bodyguard. Another asked for a lap dance and she said she'd be right out.  
  
Then she made her way back to the dressing room, Logan hard on her heels. He was trying to ignore the sight of so much exposed, lethal skin. So much firm, sweat-slicked, ivory flesh. He took refuge in anger, for once refusing to give in to lust.  
  
"What the fuck do you think were you doing up there?" he growled.  
  
"I thought that was pretty obvious," she snapped back. "Givin' guys like you a thrill." She toweled off and pulled on a sheer black top that covered her skin and clung like it was painted on. She picked up a matching skirt and headed toward the bathroom.  
  
He followed. "What the hell happened to you, Marie?"   
  
She raised the lid to the toilet and said, "Get out, Logan."  
  
He grabbed her arm again. "Not 'til you tell me what's goin' on."  
  
She shoved him effortlessly, and he went flying into the wall. That's new, he thought, some pieces of the puzzle starting to fall into place.   
  
"None of your damned business, sugar. And it's Candy when we're in here, okay?" She slammed the door in his face.  
  
He could hear her in there and said, "I'm waitin' right here, Marie. You can't stay in there all night." Trish and Sally walked in then, but he ignored them, pounding on the door. "Dammit, Marie, what the hell happened?"  
  
Her voice was muffled by the door that separated them. "Leave me alone, Logan. I ain't going back, so don't even try to make me."  
  
Trish took one look at Logan's angry face and scooted out. Sally was made of sterner stuff. "What's going on?" she asked.  
  
Rogue came out of the bathroom. "Hey, Sally," she said. "Can you fix my tags? I can't reach them." She turned and ignored Logan completely.  
  
"Marie," he growled warningly.   
  
Sally looked at him, and then at Rogue. "I take it you two know each other."  
  
"A long time ago," Rogue replied.  
  
"We got some catchin' up to do," Logan said.  
  
"You don't know the half of it, sugar," she said, as if they'd met at a church social instead of in a strip joint. A strip joint where she was the main attraction. Damn, he thought. He couldn't seem to get past that.  
  
He took her arm, carefully this time, mindful of the strength she'd just shown. "Why don't you tell me about it someplace that's not here?"  
  
"I have a job to do, Logan. I got rent to pay. If you wanna talk, we can go for a drink after my shift is over."  
  
"Your shift is over, kid. I ain't lettin' you go back out there."  
  
She shoved him again, harder this time. He went sprawling onto his ass. Sally scrambled out of the way. "And how you gonna stop me?"  
  
"Marie," his voice was softer, pleading almost. "Please. I want to help."  
  
"Well, fuck you, Logan. You're a little late." She marched out, back straight, flipping red hair over her shoulder.  
  
Logan put his head in his hands. He'd screwed that up royally.   
  
"Marie?" Sally asked softly.  
  
"You don't think her parents named her Rogue, do ya?" he responded.  
  
"You care about her."  
  
"I promised I'd protect her," he muttered. "One more promise I didn't keep." He rose, cracking his neck. "If any of those assholes lays a hand on her..."  
  
Sally's mouth quirked in a half-grin. "You go and protect her, Logan. After all, you've got a job to do, too."  
  
He followed Rogue out onto the floor. Sally's smile grew. This was going to be interesting.  
  
She was pushing the john who'd requested the lap dance onto a couch when Logan caught up with her.  
  
"No touchin', bub," he growled at the man, who nodded absently, all his attention focused on Rogue.  
  
She climbed onto the guy's lap, her knees cradling his hips as she ground down against his denim-covered erection. Her gloved hands pinned his to the back of the couch as she rubbed her breasts in his face.  
  
Logan cracked his neck again and fought against every instinct that screamed within him to pick her up and carry her away from this place. He closed his eyes and saw her moving over him as he thrust into her and snapped them open again. She was the kid, she was *Marie* -- he shouldn't be thinking of her like that. But dammit, she was a grown woman and she was dry-humping some stranger right in front of him.  
  
The guy was making incoherent noises and he could hear Rogue murmuring encouragement to him and it turned his stomach.  
  
It was so very, very wrong. He wondered how he could make it right.  
  
Then it was over. The guy slipped a hundred into the top of Rogue's boot. She flashed him a smile and said, "My pleasure, sugar." Logan wrapped his hand around her arm and led her away as the guy plaintively requested her phone number.   
  
"It's against the rules, asshole," he snapped when the guy followed them.  
  
Back in the dressing room, Rogue prepared for her next performance, while Logan paced like caged wolf.  
  
"Shouldn't you be out in front, taking care of Babette?" she asked him. He just glowered.  
  
"Marcus is on now." Marcus was the bouncer they'd called to fill in for Ramesh. Logan's voice was hoarse. He stared as she rubbed more of the ginger lotion into her skin. "God," he whispered, "you're so beautiful."  
  
"Save it," she replied shortly, due mostly to Carol's influence. Inside she was quivering. He could smell the change in her -- she hadn't been aroused while giving that dickhead a lap dance, he knew. It made his possessive instinct well up again, and again the image of her nude body straddling him as they fucked flashed through his brain. No, he thought, he wanted to make love to her. Make it gentle -- good -- for her. He shook his head to clear it. Stop it. You're not gonna get anywhere thinking like that, bub. There's other stuff to take care of first.  
  
She went into the bathroom again and he did a quick search of her bag. It wasn't the most ethical thing, but he'd never worried too much about that before. He needed information about what had happened, and he hoped to get it from her when they talked, but if she chose not to confide in him, he wanted to have other resources.  
  
And he found it. A slip of paper with a phone number written on it. He could tell it was a cell phone from the area code, and he knew it was Scott's handwriting, having received a note or two from the Boy Scout as to the disposition of his bike over the years.  
  
Copying it down, he returned the paper to where he'd found it and followed her out to the stage.  
  
***  
  
Babette was waiting for him at the end of the evening. He didn't know about the acrimony between her and Rogue, so he didn't expect the slap she laid on him when he told her he wasn't going home with her. He shook it off and lowered the hand that had come up in response. He couldn't hit a woman. Not unless he was fighting for survival.  
  
"Look, darlin'," he said reasonably, "we had a lot of fun. But that's all it was. I got things to take care of --"  
  
She cut him off with a growl that made him want to laugh. He wisely stifled it as she said, "You're not her type, Logan. Don't you know she lives with Sally and Lena? They're all dykes. She won't give you what you want."  
  
"That's okay, Barb," Rogue said, emerging from the club, "he's all yours." She began walking away.  
  
"Dammit," Logan muttered. Louder, "Kid, wait." She didn't stop. He strode after her, his longer legs allowing him to catch up quickly. "Marie, please."  
  
Don't be a wuss, Carol advised when Rogue stopped at the tone of his voice. It was one she wasn't familiar with. Pleading. "One drink," she said. "The Gemini is open all night."  
  
He followed her across the street to the diner, ignoring Babette's curses.  
  
They slid into the booth, facing each other. He didn't bother to look at the menu. "Cheeseburger, rare," he said, "and a Molson."  
  
"I'll have the same," she told the waitress. "So, what do you want, Logan?"  
  
"I want to help you."  
  
"I told you, it's too fucking late for that."  
  
"Don't swear, kid."  
  
"I'm not a kid anymore, Logan," she snapped, "and I'll say whatever the fuck I please, okay?" It was strange, she thought, how prominent he became in her head now that he was around physically. Carol didn't like it. She didn't like it one bit.  
  
"Still got me in there, huh?"  
  
She chuckled unexpectedly. "More than you know, sugar."  
  
Their food arrived, and they ate in tense silence. Logan was a past master at long silences, but this one got on his nerves, made him very edgy for reasons he could not, at first, identify. He watched as she took a long pull off the bottle of beer in front of her and felt his groin tighten almost immediately. That bothered him even more, because she wasn't Candy the red-headed stripper anymore. She was clean-scrubbed Marie in sweatshirt and jeans, mahogany and platinum hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. And she was no longer a kid. She was right about that.  
  
Of course, he reminded himself, You haven't seen her in five years, or spoken with her in three. Things are bound to be different. Sometimes, because he didn't notice the passage of time, he forgot its effects on others. And Marie had certainly been affected, he thought, allowing his eyes to roam over her again, as he drank in her scent. That was still the same, at its base, though there were some significant differences, as well. He could sense a little of himself in there, and a tang of metal that was probably Magneto's residue; there was someone else too, and whoever it was, they were angry.  
  
Rogue was too busy trying to silence Carol in her head to notice how tense he was. Carol was taunting her because of the flare of hope, of desire she'd felt when he stopped her, told her he wanted to talk. Maybe Xavier had sent him, she thought. Maybe Jean had gotten over her anger.  
  
Carol laughed bitterly. Don't let her fool you, she advised. Jean can hold a grudge.  
  
And what about you? Rogue shot back, chewing slowly so she wouldn't have to talk. You're still blaming me for what was basically your fault. *You* were the one with the super-strength, not me. You should have known I couldn't get free of you once you latched on.  
  
Ms. Marvel sighed. I guess, she said diffidently. I'm sorry.  
  
It was the first time in the eighteen months since the accident that Carol had admitted her culpability. Rogue dropped her burger, pulled her gloves on and slid out of the booth. "I-- I have to go."  
  
"What?"  
  
"I can't be around you right now." Her voice rose shrilly and she lowered it. "Carol gets angry," she whispered, placing a hand on her head.  
  
"Carol?" he asked sharply.   
  
"Maybe I'll see you tomorrow," she said, putting her coat on and slinging her bag over her shoulder. "If you still want to talk."   
  
"Marie, please--"  
  
"I still have to give you your tags back," she continued in that same low voice, as if he hadn't spoken. She put a hand to her chest. "I haven't worn them since... Anyway, meet me at EJ's on 81st and Amsterdam. Nine a.m."  
  
And she was gone.  
  
***  
  
As soon as she was off on a deserted side street, Rogue launched herself into the air. Flying helped clear her head, and it made Carol happy.  
  
She needed to think. Obviously, she'd just had what the Professor would call a significant breakthrough. Now, it was just a matter of keeping the dialogue going long enough to convince Carol to let go and fade away. David had disappeared on his own; Erik had receded within a matter of weeks.  
  
Before Carol, Logan had been the person she'd been exposed to longest, and it had taken him the longest to fade. She could still call up his memories -- what there was of them -- and his skills when she needed them, though his powers hadn't stuck around long at all. The advent of Carol in her head had brought him roaring back to life, but still, he was a comfortable presence, one that didn't disturb her overmuch. He popped out every once in a while when the occasion demanded it, but otherwise he was quiet, unless Carol started trouble.  
  
Carol, however, had fought her every step of the way, and she wondered now if Carol had had some kind of contact with Jean -- if that was why the woman's anger had never diminished.  
  
Carol was silent, but sheepish, and Rogue felt like crying. She couldn't afford to while flying, so she pushed the thoughts down and concentrated on getting home in one piece.  
  
Once there, she fled to her room and sobbed for what felt like hours. How could you do that to me? To us? she asked over and over.   
  
Carol had no answer beyond, I was angry. You killed me.   
  
I didn't want to. I didn't want your stupid powers. I don't want them now. I would give them back to you if I could, don't you know that? You've lived in my head for almost two years now. Don't you see that I'm no happier than you are?  
  
But you're still alive.  
  
And Rogue had no argument for that.  
  
***  
  
Logan was on his way back to the room he was renting when he decided he needed a drink. He went to a bar on Canal Street, just around the corner from his building, and drank steadily until the place closed at four. Afterwards, he headed to his room and polished off the bottle of Jim Beam Babette had brought him the other day.  
  
Lying on the bed, head a little fuzzy from copious amounts of liquor, he thought about Marie, and what the past few months must have been like for her.  
  
She was strong, but he could tell she was close to breaking. It was something in the way she spoke in the diner. Looking at the clock, he knew he couldn't call Slim until at least six. Another hour. Shit.  
  
He got up and paced, the motion speeding the alcohol through his system, so that at six-fifteen, he was sober as a judge, and ready to give One-Eye a call.  
  
***  
  
Scott had been out for a run when his cell phone rang. "Summers," he barked, leaning against a tree.  
  
"Who the fuck is Carol?"  
  
"Logan? Is that you?"  
  
"Who else would it be, One-Eye?"  
  
Scott sighed. He'd been glad in a way that he'd missed Wolverine's return to the mansion. It meant he hadn't had to face the shame of his -- their -- behavior toward Rogue.  
  
"I'm so sorry for what happened, Logan. I tried to talk to Jean, but she just wouldn't listen."  
  
"What's Red got to do with it?" Logan was confused. "Start from the beginning."  
  
By the time he got off the phone, Logan wasn't sure if he even *wanted* to take Marie back to Westchester, though Scott had managed to convince him it was a good idea.   
  
"The Professor is the only one who can truly help her, Logan, and I swear, I'll do everything I can to convince him to shut down Jean's empathic abilities, if she won't do it herself. And I'm so, so sorry I wasn't able to help her before." The younger man's voice had broken slightly and Logan was surprised. "We were all to blame, and we let her carry it. Bring her home, Logan. She needs us. And we miss her."  
  
He showered and changed and hopped on his motorcycle. He'd never been much of a talker, but he knew that in the next hour, he'd have to come up with something to convince Marie to quit stripping, at the least, and, if he suddenly developed the oratorical skills of Demosthenes, to go with him back to Westchester, at best.   
  
He wouldn't leave her this time. He'd stay and keep his promise, instead of being driven away by the fear of actually caring for someone other than himself. If he had been there -- well, he wasn't going to dwell on that. It was over and he couldn't change it. The only thing he could do now was try and fix it, and whether it meant staying in the city, taking her to Canada, or going back to Westchester, he was going to make damn sure that Marie never had to run or beg or strip again.  
  
Regardless, he was going to have a little chat with Chuck and Jean.  
  
He pulled up in front of EJ's Luncheonette at exactly nine a.m. and saw Rogue, once again dressed in jeans and boots, and a wool coat buttoned up against the December chill.  
  
Parking, he followed her in.  
  
They faced each other in silence again, and he noted the dark circles under her eyes. "You been cryin'?" he asked softly, reaching out a gloved hand to stroke her cheek.  
  
She twisted away. "Stop acting like you care, Logan."  
  
Fuck. "I do care."  
  
"You got a funny way of showing it," she said, not even trying to hide her bitterness. If he'd been there, maybe Carol would still be alive and she wouldn't have had to live through this hell.  
  
He accepted her reprimand. It was true.  
  
Their food came and they ate quietly, managing to keep the conversation limited to, "Pass the syrup" from him and "How about those Giants?" from her.  
  
Carol was strangely at peace, not taunting or snickering at the way Rogue's heart had sped up upon seeing him, or the thrill that went down her spine when he touched her.   
  
He insisted on paying the bill, and afterwards she said, "I guess I ought to give these back." She pulled something out of her pocket. His dogtags. God, how often had he thought of her wearing them while he'd been away?   
  
"Please don't, Marie," he said softly, curling her fingers around them as he'd done the day he'd given them to her, the day he'd promised to come back for them -- for her.  
  
She closed her eyes against the tears that were threatening again. "Logan, I don't know what you want. I just know that I'm too tired to deal with this."  
  
He took her arm and led her outside. "Let's just walk, okay, kid? And I can tell you all about what happened while I was in Canada." He still had no idea how to broach the subject of Carol.  
  
He told her about finding the abandoned military base at Alkali Lake. "Abandoned was the perfect word for it. There was nothin' but a huge, burnt-out carcass of a building. Nothin' but scrap metal and old rusty jeeps with no tires. I looked around and questioned the people in the nearest town, who told me the base had closed and everyone who worked there was transferred over to Athabasca. So, I went there, too. Over and over again, I found nothin'. A whole lot of it." He sighed.  
  
While he was talking, they wandered over to Central Park, which was relatively empty on the morning of a school day, and she led him to the swings in the playground at 72nd Street.  
  
"I like it here," she said softly, sitting on one of the swings. "It reminds me of bein' a little kid, before all this bad stuff happened."  
  
He sat next to her awkwardly. Swings weren't his deal at all. "I know what happened, Marie. I spoke to Scooter this morning."  
  
"Fuck," she whispered. "I'm amazed you're even talking to me, cold-blooded killer that I am. I truly am a rogue now, Logan. I got kicked off the team after one damn mission."  
  
"Don't say shit like that, Marie. You're not a killer. It was an accident."  
  
"Tell that to Jeannie," she snapped.  
  
"I will," he replied. "Will you come back with me to make sure I do it right?"  
  
"No fucking way in hell," she snarled, and he was startled at how she even had his inflection down when she said it.   
  
"I know they didn't do right by you. That's my fault, too. I shoulda never stayed away so long. I was just--" he paused uncertainly, "I was scared of caring. I know I made a promise to protect you --"  
  
"And you've done a bang-up job," she muttered, making him recall saying those same words to Xavier once upon a time.  
  
He kept talking. "I wanted to come home, to keep my promise. But I was an idiot. Can you ever forgive me?" He got off the swing and fell to his knees in front of her. "Please forgive me?" He knew he sounded pathetic now, but he'd failed her in every possible way, and he didn't think he could live with himself if he didn't try to make it right.  
  
She sniffed. She couldn't stay mad at him, especially not now. He was the only one who'd ever truly cared at all, who'd never been afraid of her. Carol was strangely silent. "Oh, Logan," she whispered, and he buried his face in her lap. She stroked his hair gently. "I guess I can forgive you."  
  
He looked up at her. "Come with me back to the mansion?"  
  
Her eyes hardened. "No."  
  
"Stop stripping, at least, Marie." He pulled out all the stops. "For me? I'll take care of you. Really, this time."  
  
"How else am I gonna pay my rent, Logan? Pay my tuition? School is expensive."  
  
"You're in school?" Damn, he was proud of her.  
  
"Yeah. Almost done. Lost a semester, and had to take some incompletes, but I think I can graduate in June, and just take a couple of summer courses."  
  
"Xavier knew--" Now he was pissed. They'd known all along where she was and they'd let him worry for a month. He stood up and started pacing.  
  
"No. No one knew. I wasn't in touch with them at all. And I'm not going back there, Logan."  
  
"You can't spend the rest of your life as a stripper, Marie. It ain't healthy. It's demeaning."  
  
She shook her head. "You've spent more time with strippers than any man I've ever met."  
  
"That don't make it a good thing for you to be, and you know it. You're nothing but a piece of meat to those guys, Marie, and you're better than that."  
  
"Oh, I'm better than that, but Lena and Sally and LaTonya aren't? You don't like it because it reminds you that I'm not a little girl anymore." Uh oh, she thought, Carol's gotten loose. But it wasn't Carol. It was all Rogue. "And you'll have to face the fact that I might be fucking some guy instead of being your sweet little Marie."  
  
"I know you ain't a little girl anymore, Marie. I noticed that pretty damn quick. This ain't about you and me--"  
  
"There is no you and me, Logan."  
  
"There could be. If you wanted--" he broke off, startled at the turn the conversation had taken. "But I think you gotta get your head sorted out first, and Xavier's the guy to help you."  
  
"I think I'm doing pretty well on my own, Logan. I got a job, a nice apartment, and a three point five grade point average."  
  
"And you're still afraid to let anyone close to you."  
  
She screamed in frustration. "I can fucking kill with a touch, Logan! You of all people should understand that!" He didn't flinch when she ripped the glove from her hand and reached out to him. "I almost killed you, *twice*. How can you stand there and talk to me about letting someone get close? I did kill Carol. And I could kill again."  
  
"Which is why you spend your nights dancing naked in a cage?" he snapped. "You can't live your life in a fucking cage, Marie. You got this crazy idea that that cage can keep you safe. Or that your powers keep you safe, but all you're doing is building another cage -- this one inside your head.   
  
"Yeah, you got a raw deal, and it sucks to be you, but you're not the only one--" *snikt* "Do ya think I wanted these freakin' things? Do you? But I don't let that stop me from bein' more than just a freak with a metal skeleton. I *am* more than that, and you know why, Marie?   
  
"Because I met you, and I cared about you and I let you into my life. Maybe you can't see it, but I've changed the past couple of years, and it's all because of you. And I want to help you. Right now, you're livin' in a prison you've created.   
  
"But all the bars and chains ain't gonna protect you. You're more than just a piece of meat wrapped in a poison skin. You're still gonna get hurt. You can't be afraid of it. You have to rise above it, fight it, and be free. But you have to *want* it. And it ain't easy, believe me. It's much easier not to care, to just go on and live like an animal. But you're not the kind of girl who can live like an animal, and you're not the kind of girl who can live in a cage, Marie. You need to be free, but you're the only one who can open the door." He said it again, "You have to want to."  
  
She was shaken by the passion in his voice, and in her head the voices clamored that he was right. Erik, Carol, Logan, David, Marie -- they all knew he spoke the truth. But it was hard. "Logan, I just, I can't, I don't think I can go back there."  
  
"Then we won't go, Marie. But please, let me help you."  
  
She was crying now in earnest. He gathered her in his arms and sat down on the swing. "Oh, God, Logan, I'm so scared."  
  
"I know, darlin', but it's okay. I'm here now, and together we can do this."   
  
He rocked her gently, and they stayed there for a while, until her tears subsided. She said, "Do you have somewhere for me to stay?"  
  
He thought about that and said, "Not yet. But I will. Are you gonna quit the Cage?"  
  
She sniffed again. "Not until I get another job."  
  
He smiled. "That's my girl. I think we're gonna be all right, don't you?"  
  
She listened for dissenting voices but there were none. "Yeah," she whispered, laying her head on his shoulder, feeling safe for the first time in over a year. "I think we're gonna be all right."  
  
==End==  



End file.
